22 Mar These teenage girls came from Afghanistan to build robots in Canada

The Afghan Dreamers, an all-teenage-girl robotics team from Afghanistan, made international headlines last year after twice being denied visas to visit the U.S. for the 2017 FIRST Global Challenge, a robotics competition involving more than 2,500 kids from 157 countries. They eventually got permission to make a trip to Washington, D.C. last summer, after some personal intervention from, of all people, Donald Trump. Now, seven of the team’s 12 members are in Canada, after being invited by FIRST Robotics Canada.

The girls, aged 15 to 16, are being hosted by the Oakville families of a FIRST Robotics team from St. Mildred’s-Lightbourn School. They’re being escorted around the GTA by Roya Mahboob, the CEO of the Digital Citizen Fund, a U.S.-based non-profit that’s funding the team, with an eye toward changing prevailing Afghan cultural attitudes toward women in technology-related jobs. The Dreamers will be participating in provincial qualifiers for the 2018 FIRST Global Challenge, which will be held in Mexico City. They’ll return to Afghanistan in April.

We caught up with the team as they checked out a robotics event at Ryerson University earlier this March. With Mahboob interpreting, we asked four of them about their challenges and aspirations. Here’s what they said.

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